This invention relates to the field of soft armor material in general. More particularly, this invention relates to the field of soft armor material made of woven light weight fiber materials.
Soft armor material is known which is made from a plurality of fabric layers of light weight, high strength fibers, particularly aramid fibers, such as those sold under the trademark Kevlar. A typical soft armor material made from such fabric material is usually tailored in the form of a jacket or vest and is used to protect individuals against hand gun, shot gun, club and knife assaults. When soft armor material made of aramid fiber is struck by the bullet from a hand gun, the fibers absorb and disperse the impact energy from the struck fibers to other fibers in the weave of the fabric. The major energy transfer occurs at the cross-over points where the fibers are interwoven. Additional energy absorption is provided by arranging multiple layers in a direction parallel to the path of the bullet or bullet fragment. Such fabrics are typically designed to maximize the number of cross-over points, and thus the energy absorption. Since the woven fibers work together to dissipate the impact energy, a large area of the garment becomes involved in preventing penetration of the bullet therethrough. This energy dissipation reduces the severity of the shock (termed "blunt trauma") delivered to the body when the bullet or fragment is stopped. Additional protection against blunt trauma is provided in some soft body armor by the inclusion of a trauma shield layer in the interior of the soft body armor, the layer typically being fabricated from a resilient material such as plastic, foam or rubber.
While such conventional soft armor material can protect effectively against hand gun, shot gun, club and knife assaults, little protection is provided against sharp pointed knives or ice picks. This is due primarily to the woven design of the fabric which must permit lateral movement between fibers in order to provide the impact absorption energy characteristic. Since the fibers are free to move laterally in each layer, a sharp pointed instrument can readily penetrate through multiple layers and inflict life threatening wounds to the armor wearer. Efforts to provide soft body armor to defend against the threat of sharp pointed objects have typically centered around the use of relatively thick and expensive solid inner layers constructed of a strong, light weight metal such as titanium. Such devices, however, provided only limited protection unless fabricated to thicknesses which are unacceptably stiff and heavy so as to hamper the mobility of the wearer, in addition to being prohibitively expensive. Efforts to provide soft body armor having an acceptably light weight, relatively low cost, and the ability to shield against the threat of both bullets and narrow sharp pointed objects have not been successful to date.